


Our Favorite Weapon

by Destinyawakened, feveredsweetness



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: "You delight I tolerate", "with my hands", Asphyxiation, Assassin AU, Choking, Dark!Will Graham - Freeform, Deception, Gen, Hannigram - Freeform, Intimacy, M/M, Manipulation, Murder Husbands, So it's basically canon, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Violence, Will is rude, but Hannibal delights in it, intellectual intimacy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 05:15:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11707545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destinyawakened/pseuds/Destinyawakened, https://archiveofourown.org/users/feveredsweetness/pseuds/feveredsweetness
Summary: Victims come and always go. The means used to achieve their ends growing all the more stagnant. Killing in the name of the profession has long since left Agent Lecter bereft of any delight there was to have in such wickedness, until now.





	Our Favorite Weapon

Checking his gold Rolex adorned to his wrist, Hannibal placed the perfectly cleaned Glock and suppressor into the molded brief case, locking it shut tight. He had just enough time to get to his car and walk back to the bar just down the block. His usual every other Thursday night drink with Agent Graham and he wouldn’t want to keep the younger man waiting. Smoothing down his tie with one gloved hand, Hannibal made his way down the service stairs, footsteps silent as he went, a practiced footing for silent attacks. At the bottom, he carefully opened the back door and slipped out, unnoticed, save for the man asleep in the garbage, whom Hannibal paid no mind.

Clicking the door unlocked on his Bentley, Hannibal popped the trunk and discarded the briefcase inside, gathering out instead his work phone, which he slipped into his pocket, on silent for now-- vibrate if they really needed him.

Hands in his pockets, Hannibal locked up the car once more, and strolled leisurely toward the appointed meeting place, Jorge’s on 5th, making it seem as though he hadn’t just come from his latest mission. Hannibal got them a table, seeing as Graham was not there just yet, and ordered their usual: Whiskey for Graham, Brandy for himself. The setting was as it usually was, quiet and not too dark, the windows open and letting in a vast, evening breeze that whipped around the muted curtains, of which there weren’t very many. A drab place, to Hannibal’s standards, but he indulged Graham and continued to come here. Friends were hard to find, after all.

Hannibal only had to wait no more than five minutes, as expected. Agent Graham presented himself without so much as the audibility of breath. A shadow playing off all the others in each location he stalked; as noiseless as the hush of night, and as benign yet malevolent as the sea itself.

Will sidled into the pub like establishment, sizing up their usual barkeep, Marcus, alongside the disjointed strand of Rochester’s most unsavory; each of whom were perched by the seductive curve of the dark oaked, though unpolished and scuffed bar.

In the grand cinema of Will’s mind, detailed calculations of how each of the low lives would meet their ends played out. Sprays of arterials and the fogging of corneas mapped out across the heightened landscape. Symphonic, almost. Each orchestrated and timed just so. Will’s blood thrummed within his veins, peace running through the rivers of his heart.

Copper, lead, and zinc danced upon the back of his tongue, preaching their hymns to the empath as they always had, whether fresh off a kill or in anticipation of the next, the music was never quite quelled.

Seated now in a complementary upholstered chair, the younger man felt himself being tugged at. The thickened, accented voice reached the distant shores of his mind as it penetrated his ears, filtering through to the bone arena of his skull where he presently skulked.

"Penny for your thoughts, Will?" Hannibal hummed, pushing Will's ordered drink toward him. The younger man always did seem quite out of the norm when they met, but they always came after a job, a fresh kill. Hannibal often wondered what sorts of snapshots Will was committing to memory afterwards that kept him so preoccupied even minutes after his arrival.

Dare say Hannibal might have been a little bit jealous.

Tapping the sides of his condensation ridden glass with his long fingers, water drops dripping down onto the unfinished wood table, Hannibal canted his head curiously at the younger man, an amused glance flitting through his honey colored eyes just briefly.

Will’s unfocused gaze cleared and drifted idly over to meet Hannibal’s. Palming the weighted glass, he lifted its brim to his lips, and took a long, savoring sip, allowing the heat of the aged whiskey to radiate through the passage of his throat, and into the depths of his stomach. A small smile threaded his lips, as the pads of calloused fingers drummed lightly upon the abused surface of the table before him, sweat from the glass gathered in the crevices of his occupied hand.

Having lightly scrutinized Hannibal’s expression, Will regarded him a moment, almost as though listening; wary of what else he might receive.

“Work,” he started with a drawl usually not heard. “All the blood smeared screams having gone unheard and the faces of all those wanted, now gotten.”

"And yet, here you are, victorious. Do the images in your mind stay safely stored, or are you allowing yourself to remember them for personal conquest, Will?" Hannibal eyed the younger man carefully, this time; always a wonder that Agent Graham, lost in his thoughts and plunders of the day. Hannibal preferred to keep his kills close to heart, always in a fancy little drawer in his mind palace, to go back to and savor the moment the life left his victim's body.

A thrill almost as pleasurable as love itself, though Hannibal hardly knew that one either. Save, perhaps, for the agent at his side, but those feelings would have to waver at some point. Their lives hardly called for such pleasantries to be allowed.

Even still, Hannibal reached out and touched Will’s hand only slightly, to ground him in place, to their table, this time, in a musty old pub, with ratty curtains and gum stuck under the table, warm and tacky even after years. Then he took it back, as an idle fan blew on them from above, but it did nothing to lessen the warmth of the evening coming, despite the brittle breeze.

Will reserved touching for his strays: dogs and the suffered victims he watched over from his old days on the police force, back when he patrolled the bustling, pungent streets of New Orleans. Since his relocation to Rochester, due to an abrupt alteration of lifestyle, the often formidable agent had locked his intimacy away. Save for his duties, of course.

He briefly pondered the intricacies of the “why ” until the tendrils of his empathy roped him to Hannibal's uncharacteristic gesture. Lured and bound. The skin of the older man's hand was cooler than one would presume. Smooth yet roughened by years of combat and weapon training. God knew what else.

With a mild scoff, Will set his drink back down, his ice being mostly melted then; the absence of the ambered fluid a found inconvenience.

As sea-made eyes latched onto those akin to his favored vice, a softer hiss of his muddled the air.

“I’m not that prideful, Hannibal,” he stated, though indifferent to his own words. “I don’t delight in revisitation. I prefer to indulge in the act of violence itself, however grandiose it may be in the cellar of my mind.”

His eyes turned stormy in their pleasure, glimmers of unrelated amusement pricking through to their surface as the man surveyed Hannibal further, tracing the notes of his friend’s suppressed discomfort.

Always the gum and the additional “riches” of the less than satisfactory. Hannibal, since Will first encountered him, was a creature of excess in all aspects of his finely crafted life, from his well-tailored person suit to the throes of primality. It’s what made life as full and fruitful as it was for him.

“How are your personal conquests these days?” Will countered, turning away in order to signal Marcus with a minute glance from glass to bottle in the Barkeeper's grasp. The vibration of his phone tingled his thigh. With swift, practiced subtlety, he declined the call. He knew already.

Having returned his attention to the other agent, his brows lifted into the messy fringe of darkened curls. White teeth followed the flash of his tongue upon his lower lip, worrying the flesh before retracting. Disinterested in the subdued life of the establishment and awaiting the oncoming trains of Hannibal’s thoughts, Will knew full well that he’d have plenty to boast about.

"Very well. Thank you, Will," Hannibal said with a prideful little smirk gracing his aristocratic features. He quirked a barely there brow toward Will, leaning forward on the arm of his chair, presenting more interest in the young man than his own. His kills and conquests as Will so liked to call them, were boring at best, usually in need of a quick kill to get the job done.

Hannibal much preferred the slow, silent kills that could be done with his hands, choking the life from someone, or snapping their neck just so and watching them suffer in silent pain. Knives were also fun, far more intimate than a gun. So, his conquests were jobs these days, hardly any fun at all.

"They become pettier and pettier as the jobs wear on, do they not? I find myself stuck between amusement on the why, and boredom on the how come. I could break the mold, I could drop a glass and see if it comes back together, but I fear I'd only be disappointed." Hannibal leaned in a little closer to Will, far more than he knew the younger man ever liked anyone to be, but Hannibal liked to push boundaries. "Would you disappointment me, Will?"

Will fought against the ingrained tendency to roll his eyes, though his efforts, while admirable, were not entirely successful. The man opposite him monitored the rise and decline of his unbridled, sided stare; his lips pressing together, bemused.

The younger man could then sense the bristling of his own outward air, dubiously measuring Hannibal in fair warning. A courtesy Will seldom ever granted anyone with. However, Hannibal was not just anyone.

“When God is bored, he seeks pleasure. As you’ve said on other occasions, killing is something in which feels good to God too, and are we not made in his image?” Will gave a wry smile, and pause, allowing Marcus to fill his glass and traipse back to his stead without comment. He had nearly forgotten the command, having been entangled in Hannibal’s fixation.

He let the weight of his offering sink into the space between them, all the while permitting himself a sip of the refreshed beverage with Hannibal left in tantalizing wait.

Will swallowed and rested the drink on the table, the weight of it still full on his hand as he did not relinquish his purchase.

He sucked in his bottom lip and released it within the same moment. Hannibal had not lessened his proximity, still testing the empath’s limits.

“You,” he resumed, the drawl from earlier roughening. “Are a god defying the other. Seeking to make others into his own. You’re stalling, Hannibal. And yet, luring. Meaninglessly. Are you merely this bored, or has your curiosity gone neglected for too long?”

“Can one not do both at once?” Hannibal smiled, but never with his teeth, only enough to show a glimpse of white, and only bare amusement at that. His micro-feature twitches said more than any real sign of emotion ever would for a man like him. If he could be considered that.

He finished his bourbon, and set the glass to the side, only needing the one, unlike his counterpart across from him, who took to alcohol like a fish to water. Oh, and how Hannibal ached to pick his brain as to why, even if he had some ideas, he didn’t let them taint the words rumbling around his brain at the moment they shared.

“The work becomes banal, therefore, the worker seeks to rectify his boredom in whatever means necessary,” Hannibal explained, his tone even with just a tint of the lisp that carried over from his accent. “Tell me, Will, don’t you ever wonder what it would be like to kill somebody simply because you wanted to?”

A huff of a raspy laugh frothed from out his mouth, as he was somewhat incredulous upon hearing the inquiry from his friend. Will couldn’t say he was surprised, necessarily. Honestly, with their line of work, he was more surprised that Hannibal hadn’t conjured up the question sooner; though he knew the curiosity had been stirring, and padding up into the foyers of the man’s mind since their hallways of beginnings had formed even the barest layers of their foundations.

Will moved to take another drink from his glass, and then rescinded the gesture; his lips spreading into a mirthless, lopsided grin.

“Your silence is telling, though I wonder if you prefer not to say so you do not have to admit it, or if you simply wish to keep me on a level of surprise,” Hannibal said, enjoying the look in Will’s eyes, secretive and yet altogether delightful. He took a deep breath, ready to say more when his phone vibrated in his pocket. “Pardon.”

He plucked the phone from his pocket and looked at the text received. Curious and inconvenient.

Honey colored irises settled on Will once more as Hannibal pocketed his phone. “Perhaps it’s a conversation best left for a more private location.”

Will’s jaw tensed at this. Under the intensity of Hannibal’s attention, he leaned back into the cradle of the chair supporting him, his fingers committing the ridges of the glass to memory, his mind sketching the moment held tautly between them onto its canvas. His own tempest gaze leveled now with Hannibal’s as he threw the rest of his whiskey down the hatch and placed it back on the table with a murmured thud.

The echoed sound of the pulse that thrummed through his ears. Like footsteps that marched into the violence ahead. The brand of violence the night always provided.

And when given, Will would take.

He knows.

The younger agent was careful not to permit his grin to falter, rather he allowed it to sprawl a bit more upward on one side, adding a flash of teeth to indicate the feral amusement that was, in fact, there; nestled in the chamber of his heart which had always remained private. And Hannibal was at its gate, key presented within his skeletal grip.

The weight of Will’s phone seemed to press more urgently against his thigh when he shifted his weight in his seat, readying himself for departure.

Skilled, though delicate and capable fingers danced around the phone’s edges as he retrieved what he knew the cost of the tab would be from his pant’s pocket. Marcus never expected payment from Will, but given the evening’s draw of the crowd, instincts told him it’d be the only fair compensation he’d get.

“Private, yes,” Will agreed as he rose from the table and promptly took his leave, through the tangle of strangers and out the less noted exit, the glaring red of the sign above burnt out to a ravenous black.

Hannibal laid down a sizeable bill despite having just had the one drink, trapping the crisp bill under his empty glass as he stood, smoothing down his shirt. He gave his companion a wistful look that only seemed to light his eyes, the rest of his features mute. Keys pulled from his pocket, Hannibal slipped out into slightly chillier weather than the bar had hosted, chilling his skin on contact. Waiting, he watched the cars and people walk by, slipping on sunglasses to shield his eyes from view of any pesky intruders that wanted to distract him, lest it be Will, of course.

“Shall we then?” he asked, waiting. “My loft isn’t far, if that’s private enough for you.”

The selection of such an intimate location was not an astonishing suggestion, given Hannibal’s preference for such affairs; especially when his desires for psychoanalyzing were far too alluring. Will had been, albeit, an often reluctant guest due to this and the other idiosyncrasies his colleague harbored. Ease, however, along with grating persistence, of course, carried over with the passage of time; the uncharacteristic evolving into the characteristic as plaguing curiosity underwent change into conversations between eventual friends.

Will averted his eyes after allowing brief contact with the others in an unspoken accordance.

Wind him up and watch him go…

Taking the silence as more intriguing behavior from his friend, and as a silent agreement, Hannibal gestured they move on, hoarding Will away from the bar and off the sidewalk, toward his discreet parking space, but never one to assume, he glanced at Will in question.

“My car or yours? Unless you prefer to drive yourself, it’s not far, as you know.”

With a sardonic smile, the young empath breathed a graveled, short-lived chuckle.

“I believe I’m more or less functional enough to drive, Hannibal, however favorable your offer may be at this hour. I’ll meet you there.”

Dipping his hand back into the pocket of his trousers, he withdrew his keys and palmed them. Waving with the keys to his vehicle in hand, he gestured his farewell to his friend and set off, alone, down the fractured sidewalk with only the sparse, soft light emitting from the street lamps to illumine his way before turning into the usual, far less frequented car park where his car was stored on the utmost vacant level.

Hannibal retreated back to his own, a few blocks down yet. Will would arrive before him but maybe that was just fine.


End file.
